6 January 31 • 2019
jn

T

he 116th Congress has barely
gotten settled, and already
BDS and efforts to combat
it are wreaking havoc across the
Democratic Party and between
Democrats and Republicans. Earlier
this month, there were accusations of
dual loyalty, allegations
of secret support for
BDS, and thinly veiled
efforts to use Israel
and BDS, specifically,
as a wedge issue for
political gain.
This is almost cer-
tainly a preview of
what is to come rather
than an aberration, and it adds to the
urgency that Democrats already feel
to maintain the party’
s historically
pro-Israel bent while effectively beat-
ing back attempts to cast support for
Israel as being the sole province of
Republicans.
All the rancor sprouted from Senate
legislation targeting BDS, which had
been introduced as part of a package
of four pieces of legislation com-
prising the Strengthening America’
s
Security in the Middle East Act of
2019. The first, but less important,
episode was freshman Michigan
Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib’
s
charge that by introducing anti-BDS
legislation in the very first Senate bill

of the new session rather than pass-
ing the House bill funding the gov-
ernment and ending the shutdown,
senators “forgot what country they
represent.”
There are two ways to read this
statement; one is that Tlaib is accus-
ing senators of dual loyalty in putting
Israel’
s interests before those of the
U.S., the other is that Tlaib is accus-
ing senators of forgetting that the U.S.
is a country that protects free speech
through the First Amendment. The
argument for the first interpretation
is that this is the plain and most obvi-
ous reading of Tlaib’
s tweet, and that
her focus on Israel is unsurprising
given her public support of BDS. The
argument for the second interpre-
tation is that the four sponsors of
the legislation are not Jewish, and it
would be odd to hurl the dual loyalty
charge at them; additionally, the rest
of Tlaib’
s tweet reads, “This is the U.S.
where boycotting is a right and part
of our historical fight for freedom &
equality. Maybe a refresher on our
U.S. Constitution is in order, then get
back to opening up our government
instead of taking our rights away.”
Whatever Tlaib’
s intended message
was, many American Jewish organi-
zations understandably interpreted it
as being an accusation of dual loyalty,
and the debate almost immediately

moved to whether Tlaib is a hypo-
crite on the dual-loyalty issue given
her outspoken defense of Palestinian
rights and embrace of her Palestinian
identity.
The mistake in this approach
should be evident; rather than refute
the dual loyalty canard, it, in effect,
concedes the point but says that Tlaib
cannot credibly wield the accusation,
which is the very definition of cut-
ting off your nose to spite your face.
It also leads to the bizarre scene of
American Jewish groups pointing to
affinity for a foreign country as a core
component of one’
s identity as being
problematic, which is an argument
that will never end well for American
Jews no matter who is on the other
side.
The Tlaib episode was alarming,
but it was only the undercard. The
real fireworks came from the Senate
machinations over the bill itself. On
the heels of procedural criticism
from Senate Democrats — including
Jewish senators Chuck Schumer, Ben
Cardin and Bernie Sanders — that
the only bills that should be consid-
ered by the Senate during a govern-
ment shutdown are ones that would
reopen the government, Sen. Marco
Rubio alleged in a tweet that Senate
Democrats’
objection to the Middle
East security bill was not due to the

shutdown, but was actually because
“a significant # of Senate Democrats
now support #BDS & Dem leaders
want to avoid a floor vote that reveals
that.”
Rubio’
s allegation about Democratic
support for BDS was curious given
that not one Democratic senator
has ever gone on the record with
such a position and because Cardin
had tried to have the Senate pass an
anti-BDS bill just last month as part
of the spending package to avert a
shutdown. There was speculation
on social media that some Senate
Democrats were telling grassroots
activists that they support BDS but
were unwilling to admit so publicly,
although there is zero evidence for
such a charge, not to mention that
it would break every rule of politics
for BDS activists not to leak such an
enormous public relations coup were
it actually true.

DEEPENING POLITICIZATION OF ISRAEL
What is actually going on here is
the ever-deepening politicization of
Israel and an early sign of what the
next two years are going to look like.
There is absolutely zero evidence for
the claim that a “significant number
of Senate Democrats,” let alone any
Senate Democrats, now support BDS.
But that does not mean that Senate

commentary
The Big BDS Bang

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